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Preview and run your app

The page designer's right-panel preview shows one page at a time. To see the whole app — menu, navigation, page transitions, real data — open it in the builder host. The builder host renders the virtual app exactly as an end user will see it.

Goal​

By the end you will have opened your virtual app in the builder host, clicked through its menu, opened a record on a detail page, and confirmed the data flows end-to-end.

Prerequisites​

  • A virtual app with at least one page in its manifest (see Design a page).
  • The app's data source resolves — either to a register that has at least one row, or to a connector source that returns rows.

Steps​

  1. From the page designer, click Save & open preview. Alternatively, from a virtual app's detail page click Open virtual app, or hit /apps/openbuilt/builder/\<slug\> directly.

    Builder host — index page

  2. The header shows the virtual app's title; the left menu lists the entries you configured in Design a page. Click each menu entry in turn — every page should load without an error banner.

    Builder host — menu navigation

  3. On an index page, click a row to open its detail page. The detail tabs (overview, related records, history) should populate from the schema.

    Builder host — detail page

  4. On a form page, fill in the fields and click Save. The new record lands in the underlying register and shows up on the next refresh of the index page.

    Builder host — form submission

  5. Spot a bug? Click Back to Virtual apps at the top, jump into the page designer, fix the page, hit Save & open preview again. The cycle is short on purpose — the builder host re-reads the manifest on every load.

    Back to Virtual apps

Verification​

The app runs correctly when: every menu entry resolves to a page with no error banner, list rows load, the detail page shows the related data, and saving a form record updates the index list.

Common issues​

SymptomFix
Builder host shows "App manifest not found"The app's manifest is empty or invalid — open the page designer and re-save it.
Menu entries point to 404 — page missingA page was deleted but its menu entry was kept — open the Menu panel in the page designer and remove the orphaned entry, then save.
Form save errors "required field missing"The schema marks a property required that the form does not expose — re-check the form page's fields, or relax the Required flag on the schema.

Reference​